 Did you know there are two deadly enemies that you face each and every day? These enemies are often subtle and attack you (oftentimes) seemingly out of nowhere.
Do not delude yourself by thinking that just because you don't put on a soldier's uniform each day that these enemies won't come for you - they do and they will. Why do you need to be aware of who these enemies are? Because they will sabotage anything you ever do if you fail to recognize them. Thankfully, these enemies have been clearly pointed out by learned warriors of the past - all that falls on you is to make yourself aware and set about living a life to combat them. Desiderius Erasmus was a Catholic Priest and he penned a great work called the Manual of Christian Knight. Even if you are not Catholic, his words can benefit you greatly - but only if you live by them. Erasmus listed 22 principles in his work, I shall share with you his eleventh principle in which he names the two enemies are in this blog. What are these two enemies? Erasmus says you must be always on guard against these two - Surrender and Pride. Let me be clear, surrender (at times) can be a good thing. Fleeing from a stronger and well-armed enemy might be the best way to survive. However, this is not the type of surrender Erasmus had in mind. He is speaking of the surrender of giving up, of giving in. Fleeing from a stronger attacker isn't surrender, it is an active tactic at ensuring survival. Giving up is when you are being beaten by someone and you simply resign yourself to lie there and to not fight back. This is the type of surrender to guard against. How does this apply to you? Have you ever struggled to get up out of bed in the morning? I know I have and still do at times. Use this struggle as an opportunity to train and program yourself to not give up. What do I mean? I mean when that alarm clock goes off, get up quickly and set about your work for the day. This begins to make you master of your body and programs you against giving up, against surrendering. When the alarm goes off, and you look at the clock and whine, "How can it be 8am already?" and then you proceed to lie there for another hour, you are training yourself to give up. Begin today to set this right. Rise with speed and with an attitude of perseverance. The other enemy is Pride. After having interviewed over 100 professional protectors from all different branches of military, police, government agencies and real-world survivors of violence, one thing continues to come up - pride cometh before the fall. Pride and ego gets more protectors and warriors into trouble than almost anything else. Have you ever experienced a profound defeat in your life that resulted from being too prideful? You may have said something really hurtful to someone you love, or lost a high school sports game for pridefully underestimating your opponent. No matter what your situation was, I know you can think of a time when pride hurt you. Relive that moment now in your mind – close your eyes and picture it. How did you feel? How did the other people involved react? Do you want to repeat this situation? Begin today to squelch this ego - this narcissistic pride. A warrior must constantly strive to purge it from him - for pride is very tempting and easy to imbue. I see many trainers in the martial world who suffer greatly from this pride - they know all and they make sure you know that they know all. Such men, despite all talent and knowledge, are actually failures. For though they lecture and lord their knowledge over others they have failed to conquer the most important person in the room - themselves. You know someone in your life who is like this - always right, knows everything, and has to make sure you know that they know. Perhaps you are this person? I pray not! Pride surely cometh before the fall. How many have died simply because they gave up? Pride and surrender. Erasmus was wise in pointing these two enemies out. Now it falls to you to look to your own life and stand guard against these two insidious evils. Live in the battleground, Alexander Lanshe Sensei
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 Have you ever experienced a moment where the hair on the back of your neck stood taller than a Greek column? Was this fear made worse still because you knew that if he chose to attack you, you would be powerless to stop him? If you don't want to experience this fear again, I'll promise you one thing - that neither I nor anyone else could ever promise you that you won't feel fear again. Why can't I promise to prevent your fear? Because you are a unique individual whose mind and fears are constantly adapting. However, I can do do one thing for you - program you with the most effective tactics and strategies so you are no longer powerless should you face that situation again. I cannot promise you the fear will go away, but I can give you tools to combat your fear. That's all martial science does - provide solutions to neutralizing your interpersonal threats and the threats of others. I have spent the last decade training, instructing, researching and submitting myself to the most rigorous professional standards in existence to be able to seemlessly program you with the appropriate solutions to your interpersonal challenges and threats. One thing that my clients have said many times after training with me and being exposed to martial science is that they were shocked by how little they had to remember and how simple it was. What this means for you is that you can experience those same results by training with me in martial science. How does simplicity and having zero things to remember sound to you? Let me illustrate the importance of having nothing to remember by sharing with you and example: Imagine you are suddenly faced with a bad guy who has broken into your home and he is seconds away from stabbing you with his knife. Do you want to spend those crucial milliseconds thinking about what to do, or would you rather just do what you need to do with no thought at all? The only way to reach this state of pure action is to train with a licensed martial science instructor. Martial arts teaches you things you need to remember - martial science programs you with the appropriate actions now. The choice is yours - keep going to traditional martial arts schools trapped in obsolescence and impotency or join the reality revolution and get on board with martial science. If you want to be sure that you have the tools necessary to be able to be able to act when those neck hairs raise up taller than a skyscraper, share your email with me in the box below.  I am perplexed by people's confusing looks when I tell them I do martial science instead of martial arts. After they are silent for a moment I am usually met with this statement, "So martial arts right?"
"NO! (I scream in my head) Are the words 'science' and 'art' synonyms? What are you so confused about?" This used to be my internal, mental dialogue until I gained more patience. The distinction between art and science is clear to me now but it wasn't always - like you, I too once believed that martial arts and martial science were basically the same thing. Like you, I wouldn't have known what to think if someone told me they were a "martial scientist". The differences between the two now stand out to me like night and day. Can you see the differences yet? Let me put it this way: If you were shot and had a ruptured femoral artery, would you want the trauma surgeon who was going to attempt to save your life to be a scientist or an artist? What if just before they put you under to perform the surgery you heard the surgeon say, "Now it's time to see if this human leg looks like the pictures I've drawn in my sketch book." Imagine the mortal terror that would seize you as you realized (as you were falling asleep) that the surgeon who was about to operate on you was just a sketch artist - not a scientist. See my point? This is how it is for martial science vs. martial arts. Martial arts has a place and time (just like regular art) but that time and place IS NOT for personal protection/I-need-something-to-save-myself-now type of situations. If you wouldn't trust an artist to do surgery on you, why would you trust an artist to protect you or your family? As a licensed martial scientist, I am like the surgeon. I have been programmed, validated and coded by the highest warrior scientists in the world and given permission to code, program and instruct new warriors/protectors. I am not an artist. The surgeon cannot just declare himself to be a surgeon one day – he must take examinations, perform hundreds of supervised and validated procedures on cadavers, shadow currently licensed surgeons, etc. An artist on the other hand, can self-declare his artistic title and there is no one to challenge his assertion. Would you rather have the self-proclaimed surgeon operate on you or the validated one from competent medical boards and doctors? When people say, "So they're basically the same right?" I tell them, "Sure. If you think going to Harvard Medical School to study Neurosurgery is the same as studying interpretive dance at NYU." I want to be very clear, I am not bashing art. A good scientist is often one of the best appreciators of art. But a good scientist is also good at something else - knowing the appropriate boundaries and limits of a thing. Art should be "boundaried off" when it comes to fighting, protection, war, and preserving human life. Why? The consequences are just too dire if one allows "artistic expression" to make headway in a personal protection or "Self-Defense" class. If you are going to be the victim of a home invasion, do you want to know what works or what is artistic? Would you rather have been programmed and coded by an elite protector instructor that understands reality or would you rather have been taught by an artist who has no clue if what he has taught you will ever work under real-life situations? I was fortunate enough to fall into the science realm over a decade ago. I did martial arts for years as a child - starting from age 5 and continuously for a decade. But thanks to my instructor, I was plugged in with the right people, and my training shifted to reality-based martial science. How does this relate to you? If you have been seeking programs, classes, and information on how to protect yourself and stay safe - I highly recommend seeking the scientists not the artists. Science is concerned with the pursuit of truth (does this application actually work?) whereas art need never consider whether it is true or not. In fact, asking truth questions of art can be rather meaningless. For example: If I ask you, "Is it true that sketching is better than painting?" You would look at me funny. "Huh?" might be your response. Because the question makes no sense. Better in what way? For what? Art need not care or consider these questions - science must or else (in martial science's case) people will die. If given the choice, do you want your surgeon to be a scientist or an artist? I know what my choice is - it is why I continue to train with Martial SCIENCES International and why I am licensed to instruct martial SCIENCE - not martial "arts". You make your own choice but remember that consequences flow from the choices you make and some consequences are irreversible. Live in the battleground, Lanshe Sensei  "I am convinced that, if the heart is troubled, the enemy is ever able to strike us, and as much as he wishes." - Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
How is your heart today? Is it calm and tranquil, ready to receive and perceive reality? Or is it tempestuous, raging and stormy? A warrior seeks tranquility of heart for many reasons but today I want to share with you perhaps a lesser known reason why striving to maintain peace of heart is important. Let me begin by painting this picture: You are a fleeing enemy pursuers and you and your company have fled into the woods. You take refuge by a raging river – you are camping at the base of a very large waterfall. Camping here, you reason, is good because the noise of the falls will drown out your own noise so that your enemies cannot hear you. However, the noise works both ways. For if your enemy does spy you camping by this waterfall, won’t the great rush and noise of the water conceal the sound of your enemy’s footfalls as he approaches you? The very noise you believed to be your friend, is now contributing to your demise. Contrast this with camping next to a calm, tranquil lake or pond. The water is motionless – you could have mistaken it for a mirror that was laid on the forest floor. Though camping next to this pond will not conceal your speech or noises, it will also not conceal the noise of an approaching enemy. Thus, you may be alerted more quickly to the approach of an enemy and thus be able to prevent or combat the violence sooner. I contend that it is so with your heart as well. If you heart is like a raging waterfall, you can drown your own noise in it. The noise of your heart will protect you from your own thoughts, voice and conscience, but it will allow the enemy to draw nigh to the gateways of your mind, body and soul before you are ever aware of the enemy’s presence. Whereas, if you keep your heart tranquil like that pond, a perfectly reflective mirror, you will be able to assess reality much more accurately which in turn allows you to prevent, deter and combat violence more effectively. If your heart is troubled, honestly assess and face the cause of that troubling so that you may calm the waters of your heart. The rage inside your heart will prevent you from preventing and fighting the enemy because you will drown in your own turbulence. You will deafen your own ears to the sound of the approaching enemy footsteps. Keep your heart calm and tranquil so that you may hear your own voice as well as the voices and footsteps of evil men that would seek to do you and your loved ones harm. ~Lanshe Sensei |
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Alexander LansheNational Speaker, author, blogger, and life-long student of warrior arts and science. Archives
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